| The relationship between an employer and employee is a
contract, and I oppose governmental regulations that limit the contractual
details upon which people can agree. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act
takes away the freedom of employees and employers to choose exactly what
religious accomodations are reasonable to them; it instead requires that
they submit to a government employee's judgment of what is reasonable.
Instead of asking government to dictate how everyone is required to behave,
every job applicant should insist upon receiving a written employment
contract which addresses his or her religious and other requirements before
accepting any job offer, thereby limiting the employer's power to
change job requirements later. Additionally, the Act's
overly broad language will have unintended and undesirable effects, as
detailed by the American Civil Liberties Union:
ACLU
Letter on the Harmful Effect of S. 893, the Workplace Religious Freedom
Act, on Critical Personal and Civil Rights (6/2/2004) | | After following the "Strict Scrutiny" test governing
religious free exercise since the 1940s, the Supreme Court has recently
held that states may ignore citizens right of free exercise as long as they
ignore these rights equally across all religions. In order to fix this
misreading of the Constitution Congress enacted the "Religious Freedom
Act". The high Court then ruled that this act only applied to federal
cases and not the states. If elected I will sponsor legislation to
"make an exception" to this Supreme Court ruling.
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